On July 18th, 50 graduate students (including yours truly!) descended upon McMaster University to attend the first nationalComSciConCAN: a three-day science communication event consisting of four panels, six workshops, one keynote and over 25 different experts, with the aim of empowering graduate students to share their research with broad and diverse audiences. In this post, I’ll be sharing new tips and tools I learned at ComSciConCAN from experts, organizers and attendees alike, which you can apply to your own science communication efforts.

The firstCommunicating Science workshop (ComSciCon)took place in the U.S. in 2013, where a team of nine graduate students organized a three-day series of expert panels, hands-on workshops, a poster session, pop talks (one minute talks where attendees share their research, and are labelled asawesomeorjargonby listeners), and a Write-A-Thon (to prep a piece of science communication). Six years later, ComSciConCAN is the first ever series to take place outside of the U.S., where it features the same unique professional development experience with Canadian experts.